Ph.D. Course Econometric Evaluation of Education Policies

Ph.D. course, open for advanced Master students

6 ETCS

Expected preconditions: Econometrics knowledge at level of MSc course; Experience in working with Stata; Willingness to conduct own empirical research

This Ph.D. course, which is open for advanced Master students, is not a traditional lecture course, but rather a reading-&-paper course. The main part of the course is that each participant develops her/his own applied paper project, and the main course requirement is not a traditional exam, but instead a term paper that should look like the first draft of a small empirical paper, plus a presentation.

The course is devised to ensure that participants learn about education policy, about evaluation methods, and about (the reality of) how to do applied research. At the same time, it tries to convey the enjoyment of doing economic research and requires participants to be creative and productive. Even though it is fun to do sound research, it also requires (a lot of) work; thus, participants are expected to work on the topic throughout the semester, not just in preparing an exam.

After a brief introduction on research methods for empirical identification and on selected hot topics in the economics of education, the main part of the course consists of sessions to discuss papers that everyone has read in advance and of sessions where everybody presents and discusses his/her ongoing paper project, new ideas and practical problems that turn up while working on it. The specific topics covered in the course will partly be endogenous to the specific interests expressed by participants.